What is BigQuery?
What is BigQuery? A simple guide for beginners
Many companies collect massive amounts of data from their e-commerce, advertising, website, and other channels – but few know how to analyze it in a smart way. This is where Google BigQuery comes in. In this guide, you’ll get a simple explanation of what BigQuery is and why it’s a valuable tool for anyone working in e-commerce or digital marketing.
What is BigQuery?
BigQuery is Google’s cloud-based database and analytics tool. It’s designed to handle large amounts of data quickly and efficiently. You can think of it as Google Sheets on steroids: while Excel or Sheets easily crash when you have thousands of rows, BigQuery can process millions or even billions of rows of data – in just seconds.
BigQuery is also serverless, which means you don’t need to manage servers or technical infrastructure yourself. Google takes care of everything in the background, and you only pay for the amount of data you actually use.
In BigQuery, you can also combine data from different sources, as long as there’s a common field to match on – such as an order number or another ID. This allows you to merge information from multiple systems into one unified dataset, making it much easier to analyze large amounts of data from different platforms in a single overview.
The benefits of BigQuery
BigQuery makes it possible to:
Centralize your data – instead of having scattered systems for sales, ads, and customer information.
Analyze large datasets – quickly and without the limitations you face in Excel.
Connect with other tools – such as Google Ads, Shopify, GA4, or your CRM system.
Make data-driven decisions – based on a complete overview of your business.
Create a single data source – that can easily be visualized in Google Looker Studio for fast-loading, insightful dashboards.
Examples for e-commerce and marketing
BigQuery is especially valuable for companies that want to better understand their sales and make faster, data-driven decisions. Here are some concrete use cases:
Build custom reports: Combine data from multiple sources and visualize it in Looker Studio for clear, insightful dashboards.
Analyze inventory levels: How much does being out of stock actually impact total sales? With this type of report, you can easily track your bestsellers and make sure they’re always available.
Measure ad performance: How much sales revenue really comes from your Google Ads or Meta Ads campaigns? And how does total sales change when you adjust spend in one of these channels?
Move forward as one team: Create a single, shared data source that can be visualized in Looker Studio. This way, everyone in the company sees the same numbers and makes decisions based on a common source of truth.
BigQuery and Looker Studio – A winning combination
BigQuery often serves as the foundation for your reports. You can store and process your data in BigQuery and then connect it directly to Looker Studio (Google’s dashboard tool). This way, you get a live report that updates automatically and can be easily shared with your team, containing all the data relevant for analyzing your specific business.
Summary – why you should use BigQuery
Google BigQuery is a powerful tool for anyone who wants to better understand their data. With BigQuery, you can:
Store large amounts of data in the cloud
Combine different data sources into a single dataset that loads quickly in Looker Studio
Gain insights that help you make smarter decisions
For e-commerce businesses and marketers, this means you can see the entire customer journey – from clicking an ad to making a purchase in your online store – and optimize at every level.
👉 Want to know how to get started with BigQuery? At Ondigital, we’re happy to help you find the right way to collect and analyze your data.
